If I am a CEO, and I borrow, it affects my Company profitability, thus I am responsible
If I borrow as an elected official, I am only responsible for maximum 8 years. This is important to note
Debt is simply upfront consumption. When you borrow, you are essentially saying you want to use future revenues today
Hence you create a vacuum of revenue in the future. The rationale is borrow, create wealth today, cover future vacuum
Hence the term ROI, that seeks to measure how much return any investment will accrue to cover future obligations
but let's get specific
Only 1....ability to cover that future income vacuum.
I simply rank projects in that order. eg
1. Coastal railway
2. Refinary
3. Tolled 4th Mainland bridge
4..etc
I won't borrow for that...why? because I earn taxes. i will deploy 100% of my taxes to cover Social Services and Development Goals because those are "non income" generating projects...aka zero coupon investments.
Where the projects will not generate "returns" that are directly financial eg investing in a DNA lab, i use my tax revenues.
Simple
Will a Coastal Railway repay its future income vacuum? Yes
Will a digitized NTA repay its future income vacuum? we dont know.. we dont even know anyone will watch TV in 20 years. Technology evolves
Can we transfer that $500m from NTA to fund an inland port in Lokoja?
Trade and moving goods by ships on water will never change.
I think it's worth a relook
Let's not burden our kids with loans that are going to be repaid from taxes.
Regards